Sonnets!
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Do you need to write a Sonnet?
Not know how?
Why, it's easy!

I can sum it up in just a few SIMPLE steps!
Just read the bullets, put a little thought into it, and BAM you have a Sonnet!


  • Well to start off your Sonnet, you must have a total of fourteen lines. Following this pattern!
A
B
A
B
C
D
C
D
E
F
E
F
G
G
Sound easy? Well it gets a little bit harder, but not much!



  • Next you must have ten syllables in each line! Here is one of Shakespeares Sonnets to help you get the picture!

    Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
    Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
    Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
    And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
    Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
    And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
    And every fair from fair sometime declines,
    By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
    But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
    Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest,
    Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
    When in eternal lines to time thou growest.
    So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

  • Some people may say that it has to follow in Iambic Pentameter, but that's not true. The Iambic Pentameter is just how Shakespeare did his. If you want to follow in that.. The pattern for each line is as follows:
....duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH.... That is the pattern of unstressed-stressed words.

That is my little three step rules for how to write a Sonnet! Hope it helped :)


WORKS CITED!

"Writing a Sonnet- For Dummies." Dummies. 2010. Wiley Publishing, Web. 2 Mar 2010. <http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/writing-a-sonnet.html>.

"Examples of Sonnet Poems." Search Warp. 2010. IcoLogic, Web. 2 Mar 2010. <http://searchwarp.com/swa563205-examples-of-sonnet-poems-how-and-why-i-wrote-sonnets-and-valued-them-more-than.htm>.

"How to Write a Sonnet." E-How. 2010. eHow, Web. 2 Mar 2010. <http://www.ehow.com/how_3335_write-sonnet.html>.